Fact-checking ‘Jaws’: Bruce the shark vs. marine biologist Tom ‘The Blowfish’ Hird and what the movies got right and wrong

MythBusters famously debunked the climactic scene in 1975’s Jaws, proving Chief Brody’s shot to a scuba tank couldn’t have caused the fatal explosion that ends the first-ever summer blockbuster. (Spoiler alert!) In Surviving Jaws (premiering Thursday at 8 p.m. on Discovery and streaming on Max), marine biologists Tom “The Blowfish” Hird and Michelle Jewell celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary by conducting their own movie-inspired experiments. Our biggest takeaway: Don’t be wearing the brightest-colored swimsuit at the beach, a lesson imparted when Hird and Shark Week favorite Andy Casagrande enter plexiglass-front cages donning faux-nude and raft-yellow wetsuits, respectively, to determine who attracts more attention from great whites. Here, Hird — who has read Peter Benchley’s Jaws but has only seen snippets of the movie (“Way too scary!” he says) — helps us fact-check key moments from Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning classic and the sequels that followed.